Oyster Beds make their splash in FishVille!

FishVille players, check your tank's Gift Box! Last night, the game surprised players by adding a completely unannounced new feature called "Oyster Beds". Judging from the blurbs and promo images, Oyster Beds will act pretty much like Treasure Chests, offering random "special rewards", while you can also harvest them for Coins and XP.

If you can't log into your tanks right now, see the rest of this post for a full visual walkthrough.

The game will start you off with one Oyster Bed and a single White Oyster. You'll find both in the Gift Box under the "Creatures" tab.

The below image is what the Oyster Bed will look like once it's installed in your tank. Currently, the White Oyster has been dragged into the Bed and put into place in the first slot. By counting the slots, the Bed looks like it can hold up to 20 Oysters at once.

After you're done setting up your Oyster Bed, the game has two options open to you: 1) Ask for more Oysters from your friends, and you'll get the Wall Post prompt below, or 2) Send Oysters to your friends, which is essentially a Gift function, so be warned, if you use it then and there, you won't be able to send your aquarium neighbors any other gifts for the rest of the day.

More Oysters can also be bought from the in-game store. You can also get the Oyster Bed there too, but the game will only let you own one per tank. Currently there are 4 Oyster colors: White, Black, Blue, and Gold. White is the only giftable item. The other three Oysters will require Sand Dollars for purchase, where 5 Sand Dollars is roughly equal to one American dollar.

It's too soon to tell how fun this will be, but one thing's for sure, FishVille has absolutely outdid themselves with this oyster business. Now if only they'd get cracking on those Battle Tanks they were all hyped up about a month ago...